GO Virginia Board Approves First Grants

Projects to create higher paying jobs across the State

RICHMOND— The GO Virginia Board announced today the first round of project grants that support collaborative projects to grow and diversify regional economies across the state. The Board has $10.9 million available in FY 2018 for per capita grants for allocation to the nine regions.

GO Virginia Board Chairman John O. “Dubby” Wynne said, “Today marks an important milestone for GO Virginia. The regions have been hard at work for the past four months since we approved their regional plans to identify opportunities to create high-paying jobs in their communities. Never before in Virginia have we undertaken this regional, bottom-up approach to critically analyze our regional economies and propose ideas on how to better position each region for future growth. The level of collaboration and cooperation coming out of our regions is a great sign for economic development in the Commonwealth, and this is just the start. We are looking forward to building on our early successes and seeing new multi-regional collaborations and more game-changing projects in the future.”

Approved Projects:

Hampton Roads Cyber Collaboration Laboratory (HRCyber Co-Lab)The HRCyber Co-Lab will serve as an anchor for innovation in the cybersecurity, data analytics, autonomous vehicles and virtual technologies markets in Hampton Roads. There are four pillars to this project:

Virginia Cyber Trail – an outreach and collaboration effort across multiple GO regions to link educators, practitioners , researchers, and investors as a pathway for innovation

Cyber Arena – a virtual environment to innovate, test, and transition new technologies into the collaborative network

Digital Entrant Programs – will create digital jobs through internships at industry partners and will incentivize startups and companies in technology markets

Virginia Digital Shipbuilding Workforce ProgramThis project will create a regional and statewide program to train approximately 8,500 future workers – skilled craftsmen, engineers, designers, and IT professionals – to work in the new digital manufacturing environment and will support Hampton Roads’ existing advanced manufacturing and shipbuilding clusters.

Strengthening Alexandria/Arlington’s Technology Workforce Initiative
This initiative is a combination of career pathway assistance, incumbent worker training, upskilling, on-the-job training and credentialing activities aimed to support computer services industry workers in newly located or newly established firms in Northern Virginia.

Northern Virginia Tech Talent Pipeline InitiativeThis project will build upon Northern Virginia’s existing computer services and cybersecurity clusters to create a workforce system that effectively attracts, prepares, and retains qualified candidates to fill high demand technology jobs in several targeted, high paying occupational areas: programming and software development; data and data warehousing; and networking and cybersecurity.

NOVA Fab LabNorthern Virginia Community College in collaboration with Micron Technology, U.S. Army’s Night Vision and Sensors Directorate, and BAE Systems presented this project to create a state-of-the-art engineering technology “Fabrication Laboratory” in Northern Virginia. This project will help create high-paying engineering jobs by leveraging established internship programs at Micron Technology and BAE Systems as well as the existing SySTEMic curriculum at Northern Virginia Community College.

Other proposed projects supporting biotechnology, unmanned systems, broadband development, small business development, and workforce training were also considered and may be approved for funding in the future following resolution of various technical issues to comply with the scoring guidelines established by the Board earlier this year.

During 2017, the Board, in cooperation with regional councils, has been working diligently to establish the guidelines and parameters for the GO Virginia program leading up to this first application period. At today’s meeting, it was also announced that the Board will meet every other month in 2018 to accommodate additional grant requests and provide further direction on eligible projects.

About the GO Virginia coalition: The coalition is comprised of business and community leaders, partners in education and government, and interested Virginians from across the Commonwealth who support regional cooperation on private-sector growth, job creation, and career readiness. Bipartisan and business-led, the coalition favors state incentives to encourage collaboration among business, education, and government in each region, providing a framework for implementation of the private sector-focused strategies of leading business organizations and political leaders in both parties. Learn more and join the coalition at www.govirginia.org.